High school celebration in Waterloo ends in fight

A high-school celebration came to an abrupt end in Waterloo Monday night when officials say a fight broke out and resulted in five arrests. Waterloo West High School was celebrating its “West Fest” when police Captain Bruce Arends says several people started fighting in the school’s parking lot. Arends says the officers told the people to break it up but they kept on fighting and one combative group actually surrounded the police, who used their pepper spray to disperse the crowd. Five juveniles were arrested, and charged with disorderly conduct. The crowd at one point was estimated at two-thousand people, though Arends says most of the troublemakers, age 12 to 17, weren’t local students. He says only one was a West High student, others came from other schools in town, and one wasn’t a student at all. Arends says this isn’t the first time the school’s spring festival has included trouble, though it was minor in the past. There was a “similar situation ” last year, he says, including some disorderly-conduct arrests…though he doesn’t think it was as serious. Police haven’t released names of the teens arrested, and school officials haven’t said what impact the fight may have on future school events. This was the seventh year for the school’s “West Fest,” which featured a fair, entertainment, a shopping bazaar and fireworks.